Category: rePosts

This is an excellent idea although I believe this is what people in sweden do. and as robin suggested it meant a more engaged grandparent relationship.

Stop Stale Eggs, Jobs?
By Robin Hanson · March 17, 2010 9:15 am · Discuss · « Prev · Next »
Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not. Shaw
The average woman is born with around 300,000 eggs … 12 percent of those eggs remaining at the age of 30, and only 3 percent left by 40. … From the mid-30s on, the decline in fertility is much steeper with each passing year. … Female undergraduates significantly overestimated their fertility prospects at all ages. … The biological reality that female fertility peaks in the teens and early 20s can be difficult for many American women to swallow, as they delay childbirth further every year. … The older you get, the more difficult it is to get pregnant and the higher the chance of miscarriage, pregnancy problems such as gestational diabetes and hypertension, and chromosomal abnormalities such as Down syndrome. … The risk of autism increases with a mother’s age.
More here. Also, Andrew Leigh:
We estimate the relationship between maternal age and child … learning outcomes and social outcomes. … Children of older mothers have better outcomes. … When we control for other socioeconomic characteristics, such as family income, parental education and single parenthood, the coefficients on maternal age become small and statistically insignificant.
Today high status women stay long in school, start careers, and take long to match up with a man before having kids. They are often too late, their kids have more defects, and the interruption hurts their career. Low status women more often have an accidental early kid out of wedlock.
Imagine a different equilibrium, where females pick a male at 15, then school more slowly to have kids till some standard age (20? 25? 30?), when females return to full-time school and uninterrupted careers.
via Overcoming Bias : Stop Stale Eggs, Jobs?.

Our successors—liberated from old-style constraints—have imposed new restrictions upon themselves. Since the 1970s, Americans assiduously avoid anything that might smack of harassment, even at the risk of forgoing promising friendships and the joys of flirtation. Like men of an earlier decade—though for very different reasons—they are preternaturally wary of missteps. I find this depressing. The Puritans had a sound theological basis for restricting their desires and those of others. But today’s conformists have no such story to tell.
via NYRblog – Girls! Girls! Girls! – The New York Review of Books.

great news!!

Google Adds Cycling Routes to Their Maps!

Category: Research
Posted on: March 12, 2010 12:20 PM, by Travis Saunders
Regular readers of Obesity Panacea will know that I am a huge fan of active transportation (e.g. walking or cycling to work, rather than commuting by vehicle).  I just can’t say enough good things about it.  It often takes about the same amount of time as commuting by vehicle, plus it ensures that you’re getting at least some physical activity on even the busiest days.  Even just taking transit instead of driving yourself increases your chances of meeting the daily physical activity guidelines, since transit trips almost always involve some walking on either end of the trip (for more info on the transit/physical activity link, click here).
via ScienceBlogs.com:Obesity Panacea: Google Adds Cycling Routes to Their Maps!

I’m reminded of a saying by Andrew Carnegie : “Take away my people and leave the factories, and soon there will be grass growing on the factory floors, but take away my factories and leave my people, and soon we will have bigger and better factories.”

Code is expendable; developers aren’t
Finally, companies should evaluate their software investments for what they are: short-term assets. The intellectual property value of any one version of a custom Web application is minimal. Far more valuable are the developers who built it, because they’re the ones who will be asked to rewrite it in response to the ever-changing business and technology landscapes.
Google and Microsoft, among others, understand the value of hiring, retaining, and incentivizing good developers, and they do it well. It’s a shame that so many companies promote their best programming brains into needless middle-management positions or allow them to leave the field entirely, rather than retaining them for their value as developers.
via Lessons from a lost decade: Developing for a disposable Web

Must go one day.

5. Free Booze! Free Sex! A lot of companies sponsor parties, so as long as you have a pass, it’s pretty easy to go the entire five days without ever paying for a single drink or meal. Plus with all the young singles everywhere, everybody’s trying to get laid. X-thousand geek twenty-somthings trying to hook up en masse is pretty entertaining to watch. By Sunday or Monday everybody’s a basket case. Which is why the veterans are always telling the newbies, “Pace Yourself”.
via notes on sxsw 2010 | gapingvoid.